Rob Pickens admits he gets a bit attached to the wigs.
That’s obvious during a late March afternoon, which finds him in the basement of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, surrounded by some of about 50 wigs from its recent production of Les Miserables, writes Helaine Williams in Family.
Lovingly handling the wigs — mostly synthetic, with touches of human hair — worn by such principal characters as Fantine, Madame Thenardier, Cosette and Jean Valjean, he refers to the wigs by the characters’ names and human pronouns.
This is “just because … they have so much character to them,” Pickens says. “You have to get into character a little bit when you’re styling the wigs. Like how Madame Thenardier would put up her hair in her dingy mirror every morning — pop some dead flowers in it,” and go on about her day.
“It’s amazing the transformation power wigs have,” Pickens says.
See Wednesday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more.